


And the days turn to gold

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Gen, Hale remains an incompetent surgeon, I honestly can't remember what's canon and what's fanon, Male Friendship, Marriage, Second Chances, how long were Jed and Eliza married?, non-toxic masculinity, reference to Jed's mother, the battleaxe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 02:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Time could be measured in inkwells, petals, sealing wax, jam-jars.





	And the days turn to gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tortoiseshells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/gifts), [sagiow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/gifts).



“June 16,” Jed said aloud as he wrote, setting the pen back in the inkwell carefully.

“Yes,” Henry said. The letter wasn’t late in being written—it had made sense to wait the extra day or two after the surgery before letting the corporal’s wife know the man would be invalided home. If he’d been near to death, they would have sent a telegram, an expense that Nurse Mary had declared she’d pay for if the Union Army wouldn’t. Jed was an exceptionally fine surgeon, it hadn’t been necessary this time as it hadn’t been so many others under Foster’s care. There were days when it seemed Hale would beggar the Baroness.

“It’s my anniversary. My wedding anniversary,” Jed replied. Henry looked at him closely, scanning the older man’s face, his dark eyes that could be so expressive, so impassive, for a hint of what the date meant. Of how he should respond—a friend or a chaplain. Or a polite stranger.

“How long?” Henry asked. He forgot how old Jed was, how much older, despite the silver starting at his temples like the first October frost. And then he remembered—the timbre of his voice, the way his hand had trembled when he spoke of Nurse Mary’s illness, the risk that the wrong medicine could pose to a patient, the worst betrayal he’d said. As if Henry hadn’t been there when Jed’s mother had come, her voice like an unsharpened knife.

“Would’ve been eleven years. She wanted roses, all the yellow tea-roses in Baltimore,” Jed said, looking directly at Henry. He was saying something with the words, a message, one Henry couldn’t make out. Perhaps it wasn’t intended for him.

“Women set a great store by flowers,” Henry said mildly. His mother had a garden filled with iris and phlox, climbing roses, pansies with their faces turned toward every stranger. Emma put a cluster of violets at her sash if she could, white violets with petals cruder than the skin at her throat, her blushing cheeks. Even Matron, who described herself as tougher than old boots, a match for any rot-gut, nursed a slip of red geranium in a clay pot through the dank Virginia winter.

“It seemed like it wouldn’t be so difficult to make her happy,” Jed mused. “Tea-roses and velvet ribbons. And children, when they came.”

“You hoped,” Henry said, making sure to keep the remark from becoming a question.

“I was a fool, then as now. I forgot, you see, roses have thorns. Ribbons fray. And there’s never a guarantee something better will come along, something that makes you forget everything else,” Jed replied, smiling but not bitterly. Still, Henry thought, most wives, dissatisfied as they might be, longing for a child, wouldn’t leave as Eliza Foster had. Jed had never explained it nor sought his chaplain’s counsel.

“Not such a fool,” Henry said encouragingly, gesturing to the letter. “Mrs. Thompson won’t think so, nor her children. And I rather suspect you’d get an argument at home from Mrs. Foster.”

“It’s not an argument if you know you’re doomed to lose,” Jed laughed. “Mary’s reminded me of that myriad times.”

“Does she know? About today?” Henry asked. 

“How great a fool do you take me for, Hopkins?” Jed laughed, even louder, his eyes bright. Henry observed to himself that it wasn’t an answer or at least, not the kind he’d expected. How great a fool did he take Jed for?

“I believe Miz Gibson may have some sweet peas made up in a posy. Along with strawberry preserves. Might make a pleasant change,” Henry suggested. 

“Miss Green is quite an asset. Mind you get it right the first time, not everyone has my infernal luck with second chances,” Jed remarked, lightly cuffing Henry on the shoulder as he walked out, sure to buy all the blossoms Belinda had left, to fill Mary’s arms with when she opened their front door, the flowers postponing their embrace only for a moment. 

He’d been nearly right. Jed had left one nosegay, one made of sweet peas and peonies, and Belinda had handed it to him, waving way the handful of coins he offered.

“Doctor already paid up,” she explained. “Bought the last two jars of jam, but he took those with him. Hospital’ll have to do without, he says, his missus wants something sweet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tortoiseshells innocently asked how long Jed and Eliza were married and instead of bothering to do any research, I just wrote this instead. I do think it's a more entertaining answer and not just because we get a glimpse of Matron being soft, Belinda being a badass businesswoman and Henry and Jed trying to be in touch with all their feelz. 
> 
> It occurs to me that Henry must know Jed means his first wedding anniversary because he was at Jed and Mary's wedding or at least knew exactly when it was and it wasn't June 16. I sort of waffled when I wrote this, becoming more convinced Jed and Mary were married in this but I didn't start out with that clear in my head. And that was more than you all wanted to know.
> 
> Title is from Kurt Weill's "September Song" even though that song never mentions the month of June.


End file.
